


A Silver Study

by ShippingsandDeamons



Category: RWBY
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 12:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippingsandDeamons/pseuds/ShippingsandDeamons
Summary: Just a content creator posting her interpretation of Ozpin and his history. Illusions to things in chapters 4 and 5.





	A Silver Study

“Just, tell me why.”

He regarded his companion with a schooled expression out of ingrained habit, showing the ebony haired man nothing. Ozpin raised his mug to his lips and took a long, slow sip of the hot, bitter drink as he thought carefully about what to say.  
“Because, she is more than ready to attend Beacon.” He replied.

He isn’t wrong, she’d been personally tutored by Qrow himself while she attended Signal. He knew what she was capable of, and what she would one day be capable of doing. But she was still young, not the youngest person ever to attend Beacon, but still younger than all of the other incoming students. Qrow gave him a displeased look. 

“She might be more than ready, but she’s still so young.”

“I am well aware of that, rest assured I will not have her do anything she isn’t capable of doing. I am merely bringing her here so she has all the resources she needs to reach her full potential.”

Qrow sighed. He normally trusted him to make reasonable decisions, but right now was acting as if he didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. Decades, no, millennia ago that would have stung. Now, he had lived far too long to feel hurt by such gestures. Still, didn’t he trust him to understand what it’s like to be a child soldier, and not force that burden onto others? Qrow was the only one who knew his full story(the only one he’s told anyway), who knew just how dark his history really was.

“All right, you don’t make decisions without considering other options. I’ll trust you.”

“You really shouldn’t,” A part of him cried out. He was a little surprised, most of such thoughts had eroded away, either by time or violence.

“Thank you,”

He looked down at his drink. He recalled the first time he began trusting Qrow with small truths, things only a select circle of people around him knew. He’d been ecstatic to be held in such high regards even if he didn’t trust himself. Gradually, the huntsman became more and more important to him, and he eventually found himself letting things slip. An off hand comment here, a little something about himself there. Eventually Qrow became curious about who he was, what he had experienced.

He hadn’t been surprised when Qrow reacted violently to the truth, they always did. He could still recall all the razor-sharp words he’d lashed out at him with. Words that against any other person would have caused a mind to bleed, but he was too numb from the ages to feel hurt. He was a puppetmaster, yes, but he was also a puppet dangling by strings himself. He was nothing more than a tool for the gods to use, a tool that had failed them and now was forced to lose himself a little more with each cycle. 

Would he eventually lose himself entirely? That was his greatest fear, but it may eventually become his reality. His reality was already one of hardship, bleeding and bleeding for the gods who did not care about him. People called him a king, but he was nothing more than a crowned pawn. He was ultimately expendable because he could not die.

“Stop thinking, you’ll work yourself up into a hole that way.” Qrow said.

“I suppose so, I’m sorry.”

“… I was young and foolish then, I thought only of myself and not of the hardships you’ve had to endure.” Qrow added.

If he didn’t know the man so well, he would have thought him a mindreader. In truth, Qrow had just come to know his habits that well.

“You weren’t the first to lash out at me, whenever I tell my story people always do. It’s human nature.”

“That doesn’t make it alright! You’ve been forced to shoulder a burden that no human should have to carry. You’ve been denied a hero’s death all because of one mistake, that isn’t fair.”

“Things are rarely ever fair by human standards.”

“That still doesn’t make it right. The gods had no right asking a child to kill!”

“Idealist.” He thought lovingly.

“It doesn’t matter now, the past is unchangeable.”

 

Qrow made mistakes, this was no surprise to anyone. But the one mistake that made all the rest pale in comparison was lashing out at Ozpin when he finally told him his story, the complete one. The ashen-haired man had gone from some divine being to a human in his eyes. He’d said terrible words to him, called him horrible things, he wanted to take it all back. The worst part had been when Ozpin had just smiled at him and apologized for causing him inconvenience. It had taken him the better part of a week to comprehend what he’d heard, to understand just what he’d been told.

It hurt the worst when he’d finally understood. He’d been told the story of how a child had been reduced to a pawn for the gods. Of how one mistake had been the catalyst for tragedy. And he’d called him a puppetmaster without considering that he was a puppet too.

Ozpin was no saint. He’d done many bad things and had made many mistakes that had cost the lives of others. But that didn’t make him a bad man. His sins had been committed out of necessity, either having to chose the lesser of two evils, or to keep another’s hands clean. He’d felt enough pain that he eventually became numb to it all, doing what he had to as he became more and more jaded.

“I promise you, no matter what, I will remain your ally.”

Qrow never regretted that promise.

It was the early hours of the morning, the sun hadn’t even risen yet. Ozpin would remain asleep for another few minutes. It was instances like these that reminded him of all that the ashen-haired man had to bury in his past. Beacon’s headmaster looked far younger in his sleep, more like a child and less like an adult. Despite how peaceful his slumber appeared he knew the truth was that his dreams were all nightmarish renditions of events from his past. The only reason he no longer woke screaming from them is that he was too numb to do so.

It was a shame they had to hide their bond as a closely guarded secret from any who wasn’t a certain Goodwitch, but the foe Ozpin clashed with throughout the ages was not a person to be taken lightly. If she knew about them, she would exploit that bond for her own gains. It was a sad truth, and the reason Ozpin rarely kept people closer than arm’s length. He was determined to keep others safe, even if that meant he had to close himself off from the entire world.

He brushed stray locks of ashen hair from closed eyes and returned to cradling his love in his arms. For now this was all that mattered. There was no war boiling under the surface, no grimm, no high tensions with the faunus, just the peace and quiet of pre-dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't already guessed, this takes place before the events of RWBY. Ozpin's a character that I am deeply fascinated by, we know very little about him, and anything new we learn only brings up more questions.


End file.
